“The first 30 seconds of the day, I don’t remember what happened. And then, it comes back and I relive what happened.” Kimberly Wiegand says of her late 18-month-old daughter, Chloe, who died after falling from a cruise ship pic.twitter.com/VNoQ2RzvAC
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 22, 2019
The Indiana parents whose daughter died on a Royal Caribbean cruise described in an interview aired Monday their moment of horror when their daughter plunged to her death in Puerto Rico from an open window on the docked ship.
“I didn’t know that she went out a window. And I just kept saying, ‘Take me to my baby. Where’s my baby?'” Chloe Wiegand’s mother, Kimberly, told the “Today” show. “I didn’t even notice a window. I ran over there, and I looked over, and it wasn’t water down there, it was concrete.”
Chloe — who was 18 months old when she died on July 7 — fell to the ground from the 11th floor of the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship while it was docked in San Juan, the news outlet reported.
The fatal incident occurred when Chloe’s grandfather, Salvetore “Sam” Anello, placed her on a railing he thought was behind a glass wall of the ship — but when the toddler went to knock on the window, she fell to her death on the Pan American dock II.
“He was extremely hysterical,” Kimberly said. “The thing that he has repeatedly told us is, ‘I believed that there was glass.’ He will cry over and over and over. At no point ever, ever has Sam ever put our kids in danger.”
Her parents blame Royal Caribbean for having the window open without a screen — which they were told was done for ventilation purposes.
“There are a million things that could’ve been done to make that safer. I know my mom was asking people, ‘Why on Earth is there a window open on the 11th floor without a screen or anything?'” Kimberly told the “Today” show.
“And their response to that was, ‘We need ventilation.’ Well, to that I would say, ‘Get a fan. Come up with some other mechanism to make your guests comfortable, rather than creating a tremendous safety hazard that cost our child her life.'”
The Wiegand family said they plan to take legal action against the cruise line for its negligence.
“I think that they have to be,” Kimberly said. “This cannot happen to another family.”
Royal Caribbean said in a statement to the news outlet: “We are deeply saddened by this incident, and our hearts go out to the family. We have assisted the authorities in San Juan with their inquiries, and they are the appropriate people to address further questions.”
